A Gaza medic realizes he’s carrying his own mother’s body, killed by an Israeli airstrike

A Gaza medic realizes he’s carrying his own mother’s body, killed by an Israeli airstrike
In this image made from an Associated Press video, medic Abed Al Aziz Bardini cries over the body of his mother after he realizes it's her, shouting in Arabic, "Oh god, I swear she is my mother. I didn't know it was her," on Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2024, in Deir al-Balah on the Gaza Strip. (AP)
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Updated 31 October 2024
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A Gaza medic realizes he’s carrying his own mother’s body, killed by an Israeli airstrike

A Gaza medic realizes he’s carrying his own mother’s body, killed by an Israeli airstrike
  • Israel says it carries out precise strikes in Gaza targeting Palestinian militants and tries to avoid harming civilians. But the strikes often kill women and children

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza: A Palestinian ambulance worker made a horrifying discovery when the bloody sheet was lifted: The corpse on the stretcher was his own mother, killed by an Israeli airstrike Wednesday in central Gaza.
“Oh God, I swear- she’s my mother! I didn’t know it was her!” Abed Bardini sobbed as he leaned over his mother, Samira, cradling her head in his arms. Fellow Red Crescent medics tried to console him, without success.
Bardini had unknowingly sat in the ambulance beside her body, wrapped in a white sheet stained dark with blood, as the vehicle bounced across broken roads for about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) toward Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah.
Three people were killed and 10 wounded by the Israeli strike on a car in Maghazi refugee camp, according to Palestinian health officials and Associated Press journalists. Health officials at the hospital said two of the dead were men sitting in the vehicle, while the blast fatally injured 61-year-old Samira Bardini as she stood nearby.
Abed Bardini was in one of two ambulances dispatched to the scene. Back at the hospital, he unloaded the stretcher with practiced professionalism, squinting into the late afternoon sun as he wheeled the body across the hospital courtyard.
Inside, medical staff pulled back the blanket to check for signs of life, and Bardini’s strength collapsed.
Later, his tears exhausted, he sat in the morgue beside Samira’s body with his head in his hands, comforted by his Red Crescent colleagues. They held a funeral prayer over her body in the parking lot, then Bardini personally helped carry the body into an ambulance for burial.
A spokesperson for the Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strike. Israel says it carries out precise strikes in Gaza targeting Palestinian militants and tries to avoid harming civilians. But the strikes often kill women and children.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people and abducted around 250 in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that triggered the war. Israel’s retaliatory war in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were combatants but say more than half were women and children. Gaza’s Health Ministry said Wednesday that 102 deaths were recorded over the past 24 hours.


Israeli strikes kill 14 Palestinians in Gaza, medical officials say

Israeli strikes kill 14 Palestinians in Gaza, medical officials say
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Israeli strikes kill 14 Palestinians in Gaza, medical officials say

Israeli strikes kill 14 Palestinians in Gaza, medical officials say
  • One strike late Monday hit a cafeteria in the so-called Muwasi humanitarian zone west of the city of Khan Younis
DEIR AL-BALAH: Palestinian medical officials say two Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least 14 people, including two children and a woman, most in an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone.
One strike late Monday hit a makeshift cafeteria used by displaced people in Muwasi, the center of the so-called humanitarian zone. At least 11 people were killed, including two children, according to officials at Nasser Hospital, where the casualties were taken. Video from the scene showed men pulling bloodied wounded from among tables and chairs set up in the sand in an enclosure made of corrugated metal sheets.
The strike came hours after the Israeli military announced an expansion of the zone, where it has told Palestinians evacuating from other parts of Gaza to take refuge. Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering in sprawling tent camps in and around Muwasi, a largely desolate area of dunes and agricultural fields with few facilities or services along the Mediterranean coast of southern Gaza.
Israel faces a deadline this week for the Biden administration’s ultimatum for it to allow more aid into Gaza or risk possible restrictions on US military funding.
Another strike early Tuesday hit a house in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, killing three people including a woman, according to Al-Awda Hospital, which received the casualties. The strike also wounded 11 others, it said.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on either strike.
Israel’s 19-month-old campaign in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities who don’t distinguish between civilians and militants in their count, but say more than half the dead were women and children. Israel says it targets Hamas militants and blames the militant group for civilian deaths, saying it operates in residential areas and infrastructure and among displaced people.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 and killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted about 250. Around 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, about a third believed to be dead.

Israeli army says four soldiers killed in northern Gaza Strip

Israeli army says four soldiers killed in northern Gaza Strip
Updated 12 November 2024
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Israeli army says four soldiers killed in northern Gaza Strip

Israeli army says four soldiers killed in northern Gaza Strip

JERUSALEM:The Israeli army said Tuesday that four of its soldiers have been killed in the northern Gaza Strip.
It said in a statement that all four “fell during combat in the northern Gaza Strip” on Monday, bringing the total number of Israeli soldiers killed in the Palestinian territory since the start of ground operations in October last year to 376.


Spy satellite images lead archaeologists to the site of a historic battle in Iraq

Spy satellite images lead archaeologists to the site of a historic battle in Iraq
Updated 12 November 2024
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Spy satellite images lead archaeologists to the site of a historic battle in Iraq

Spy satellite images lead archaeologists to the site of a historic battle in Iraq
  • The Battle of Al-Qadisiyah was fought in Mesopotamia
  • A joint team of archaeologists from the UK’s Durham University and the University of Al-Qadisiyah stumbled across the site

BEIRUT: Declassified 1970s-era US spy satellite imagery has led a British-Iraqi archaeological team to what they believe is the site of a seventh-century battle that became decisive in the spread of Islam throughout the region.
The Battle of Al-Qadisiyah was fought in Mesopotamia — in present-day Iraq — in the A.D. 630s between Arab Muslims and the army of the Sassanid Persian dynasty during a period of Muslim expansion. The Arab army prevailed and continued on its march into Persia, now Iran.
A joint team of archaeologists from the UK’s Durham University and the University of Al-Qadisiyah stumbled across the site while undertaking a remote sensing survey to map the Darb Zubaydah, a pilgrimage route from Iraq’s Kufa to Makkah in Saudi Arabia built more than 1,000 years ago. The findings were published Tuesday in the journal Antiquity.
While mapping the route, the team noticed that a site some 30 kilometers (20 miles) south of Kufa in Iraq’s southern Najaf province — a desert area with scattered plots of agricultural land — had features that closely matched the description of the Al-Qadisiyah battle site described in historic texts.
William Deadman, a specialist in archaeological remote sensing at Durham University, said the Cold War era satellite images are a commonly used tools by archaeologists working in the Middle East, because the older images often show features that have been destroyed or altered and would not show up on present-day satellite images.
“The Middle East has developed so much in the last 50 years, both agricultural expansion and urban expansion,” he said. Some of the distinguishing features at the Al-Qadisiyah site, such as a distinctive trench, were “much more pristine and clear” in the 1970s images, he said.
A survey on the ground confirmed the findings and convinced the team that they had correctly identified the site.
The key features were a deep trench, two fortresses and an ancient river that was reportedly once forded by elephant-mounted Persian troops, said Jaafar Jotheri, a professor of archaeology at the University of Al-Qadisiyah who is part of the team that made the discovery. The survey team also found pottery shards consistent with the time period when the battle took place.
Jotheri said that Iraqis of his generation, who grew up under the rule of Saddam Hussein, were all familiar with the battle in minute detail, down to the names of the generals on both sides.
The battle at the time had political connotations — Iraq was engaged in a devastating war with Iran through much of the 1980s. Saddam pointed to the Battle of Qadisiyah as a harbinger of victory for Iraq.
Like most children growing up in that era, Jotheri said he had watched a popular movie about the battle multiple times as it was on regular rotation on television.
In the post-Saddam era, Al-Qadisiyah has become something of a political litmus test. Iraqis’ views of the battle vary depending on their feelings toward Iran, which has expanded its influence in the country since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq that toppled Saddam.
“There is some political and religious context in this battle, because now, of course, we have religious differences, ethnic differences, political differences in Iraq and we read or we view everything based on our … differences,” Jotheri said. But he added, ”We all agree that it is a very important battle, a decisive one, and we all know about it.”
The team plans to begin excavations at the site in the coming year, Jotheri said.
The discovery comes as part of a broader project launched in 2015 to document endangered archaeological sites in the region.
It also comes at the time of a resurgence of archaeology in Iraq, a country often referred to as the “cradle of civilization,” but where archaeological exploration has been stunted by decades of conflict that halted excavations and led to the looting of tens of thousands of artifacts.
In recent years, the digs have returned and thousands of stolen artifacts have been repatriated.


Israel says it has met most US demands on Gaza aid as deadline looms

Israel says it has met most US demands on Gaza aid as deadline looms
Updated 12 November 2024
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Israel says it has met most US demands on Gaza aid as deadline looms

Israel says it has met most US demands on Gaza aid as deadline looms
  • US told Israel last month to take steps to improve the aid situation in Gaza within 30 days
  • Israel appears to have refused Washington’s demand to allow entry of 50-100 trucks a day

JERUSALEM: Israel said on Monday it had met most demands by the United States to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza but was still discussing some items as a deadline looms to improve the situation or face potential restrictions on US military aid.
There are a number of things that remain under discussion and they touch on safety issues, an Israeli official told reporters. He said most issues had been addressed.
Among the US demands that Israel appears to have refused is allowing the entry of 50-100 commercial trucks a day.
The official said commercial activity had been halted because Hamas was controlling the merchants. Restrictions on the entry of closed containers would also not be lifted due to security risks, the official said.
Others, including the opening of a fifth crossing into Gaza, have been implemented.
The United States told its ally Israel in a letter on Oct. 13 that it must take steps to improve the aid situation within 30 days, with Tuesday as the final deadline.
Last week, the State Department said Israel had taken some measures to increase aid access to Gaza but had so far failed to significantly turn around the humanitarian situation.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Monday he had met the US ambassador and was confident that “we can reach an understanding with our American friends and that the issue will be solved.”
Last week, a committee of global food security experts warned of a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in certain areas of northern Gaza, a claim which Israel rejected outright.
The Israeli official said Israel had added entrances into Gaza, expanded the humanitarian zone, increased security for aid vehicles and managed joint task forces with the international community and many others as part of the process to improve the humanitarian situation.
Israel began a wide military offensive in northern Gaza early last month. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US envoy to the UN, said on Oct. 16 that Washington was watching to ensure Israel’s actions on the ground show it does not have a “policy of starvation” in the north.


Turkiye mulls unifying telecom fiber infrastructure in one entity, official says

For years Ankara has demanded that telecom operators invest more to accelerate fiber network expansion. (REUTERS)
For years Ankara has demanded that telecom operators invest more to accelerate fiber network expansion. (REUTERS)
Updated 12 November 2024
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Turkiye mulls unifying telecom fiber infrastructure in one entity, official says

For years Ankara has demanded that telecom operators invest more to accelerate fiber network expansion. (REUTERS)
  • Turk Telekom owns and maintains 78 percent of Turkiye’s 577,000-kilometer (359,000-mile) national fiber network through a concession agreement that is set to expire in 2026

ANKARA: Turkiye is considering adopting a unified fiber optic telecoms entity to expand its network, signalling it could create a separate manager for the expensive infrastructure investments, a senior official told Reuters.
The study is at an early stage and all options remain on the table, said the Turkish official, who has direct knowledge of government telecoms policy but requested anonymity.
Such a consolidation of telecoms infrastructure could help accelerate Turkiye’s broadband Internet usage and speed, benefit smaller service providers and pose a challenge for the network’s largest stakeholder, Turk Telekom.
“We are considering the unification of the fiber infrastructure and conducting a study on it,” the senior Turkish official said when asked about some sector demands for infrastructure and sales to be separated, and for the establishment of a common infrastructure holding company.
“It is in early stages and not yet finalized. By establishing a common infrastructure, we aim to further strengthen our country’s fiber-optics network,” the official told Reuters.
For years Ankara has demanded that telecom operators invest more to accelerate fiber network expansion. The companies have grown the network by a bit more than 3 percent per year over the past decade, and have partly blamed complicated permissions and high costs for the slow progress.

NETWORK OWNERSHIP
Turk Telekom owns and maintains 78 percent of Turkiye’s 577,000-kilometer (359,000-mile) national fiber network through a concession agreement that is set to expire in 2026.
A handful of other players, including Turkcell , Turksat and Vodafone own the rest.
Turk Telekom and Turkcell are controlled by the country’s wealth fund.
Smaller service providers have long advocated that investments should be made by a jointly-owned entity, rather than largely by Turk Telekom, which also sells telecom services. An effort in the mid-2010s to set up such an entity failed.
In July, UK-based Vodafone’s Turkiye unit again suggested in a report that the business of selling telecoms services should be separated from infrastructure investment and management, which could be handled by a separate “common” entity.
In September, Turk Telekom’s chief executive rejected the suggestion, saying it was aimed at carving away its infrastructure assets, which are set to return to the government once the concession period ends.
Turkiye trails its peers on fixed-line broadband Internet usage, with 23 subscribers per 100 inhabitants as of last year, below the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of 36.
It also lags on broadband speed with less than one high-speed subscriber with greater than 100 Mbps speed per 100 people, compared to a 24 OECD average.